Author: LYDIA SHEKIGHENDA
AfricaPress-Tanzania: AS the world continues to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, the Human Development Innovation Fund (HDIF), has awarded a total of 100m/-to five local innovators to scale their solutions that address the effects of the novel virus in Tanzania.
The five innovators were award 20m/- each after their solutions exhibited the most potential though the Covid-19.
Response Challenge that aimed to find, support, and amplify innovative market-ready solutions that address the effects of the respiratory disease in the country.
The challenge was launched on May 18 this year by HDIF, Ifakara Innovation Hub and Seedspace Dar-es-Salaam with support from UKAID.
HDIF Country Director, Joseph Manirakiza said recently as Tanzania joined other countries in the world to mark the World Youth Skills Day that his organisation looked at innovative market-ready solutions that counteract the negative effects of the viral disease in the provision of health, education, WASH or early childhood development (ECD) services.
“Ten innovators were shortlisted and given an opportunity to pitch their solutions on June 5 this year to a panel of wellseasoned judges and a virtual audience, including development partners, corporates and other stakeholders who were interested in supporting further innovations,” he said.
Mr Manirakiza said the five winners whose solutions exhibited the most potential were Tai Tanzania, Visual Aided Stories, Bits and Bytes, Mtabe App and Zaidi Recyclers.
He explained that, Tai Tanzania created awareness through 3D animated videos blended with Tanzanian music, including visual aided stories that create awareness through painting murals or graffiti art in various community spaces in Dar es Salaam.
“They have produced and disseminated 3D animation to raise awareness on Covid-19 to create positive mental attitude, protection, safety and promoting the community members to be of service to others in fighting this pandemic,” he said.
He said visual aided stories created Pan African murals that are a brilliant intersection of art and advertising, combining visually compelling designs with advertising messages as a unique model of talking to the society that is human-centered.
The director further said Bits and Bytes which together with Tanzania Makers’ Community coordinated the 3D printing community in Tanzania to produce and deliver PPE to hospitals and medical workers.
“They organised the delivery of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to healthcare workers across Tanzania… through this collaboration, they 3D print PPEs locally and are ongoing with trials for ventilators at the moment,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mtabe App delivered the education content to the under privileged youths through their app and SMS platform.
He said Mtabe is an offline Question and Answerbased learning platform using SMS and Natural Language Processing to provide daily quizzes and answers to questions to students without internet access, textbooks or smart phones.
The other innovations, Zaidi Recyclers and Tanzania Recyclers Association, have embarked on an initiative to make durable but cost-effective Face Shields locally.
“These efforts occurred as Covid-19 was declared as a global emergency concern and hit millions of people across the continent; Most countries started to scramble for high priced and less available PPEs to protect their frontline workers,” he said.
However, he noted that Ifakara Innovation Hub awarded Jenga Hub, for their innovative approach to delivering education through technology to children who are out of school.
The World Youth Skills Day is marked annually on July 15. At international level, several virtual events took place focusing on the theme of “Skills for a Resilient Youth”.
Designated by the General assembly in 2014, the World Youth Skills Day is an opportunity for young people, technical and vocational education and training (TVET), institutions, and public and private sector stakeholders to acknowledge and celebrate the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship.
